Chapter 54 Atlas
Atlas
The road stretched ahead of me like an old scar—familiar yet unavoidable.
My fingers clamped harder around the steering wheel, breath punching hard through my ribs.
Please be there. Please be waiting for me.
The convent rose through the trees—stone walls, narrow windows, a tower soaring softly toward the sky. Too soft a place for a man like me. But if she was inside those walls, then I would tear every stone apart to get to her. And God help anyone who tried to stand in my way.
The metal of the gate creaked under my hand. The courtyard was empty, sun-washed and silent, too gentle for the storm in my chest. I could hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears—steady, brutal, ready to rip the world apart if I was wrong.
If she wasn’t here.
I crossed the courtyard, boots loud against the stone. Ahead, the chapel doors stood open, drawing me in that direction. A sliver of candlelight pooled on the floor. The scent of incense drifted out—sweet, familiar.
My hand brushed the doorway.
I’d imagined this moment so many times that I almost didn’t trust it now.
I stepped inside.
Sister Ana was there, standing halfway down the aisle as if she’d sent an invitation and was waiting for me.
Her expression softened just a fraction. “You came.”
I didn’t waste breath on an answer.
“Where is she?”
My voice came out lower than I intended—gravel and threat woven into one.
Sister Ana turned her gaze toward the back hall. “She’s been praying. She fears the world has forgotten her.”
My jaw clenched. “I didn’t forget her.”
She nodded, as if she had expected that. “She feared you were dead.”
I walked past her, each step heavy with the weight of pain I carried. The hallway was narrow, lined with candles flickering in the draft. I passed door after door, listening.
Then I heard it. A breath caught in pain. A soft sound, like quiet crying pressed between someone’s palms.
Neve.
My hand shook as I reached for the door—me, Atlas Cavalho, the man who didn’t shake for anything—but the moment my fingers touched the wood, something inside me broke wide open.
I pushed the door slowly.
Neve sat on the floor beside the bed, rosary spilled across her lap, her shoulders trembling with every breath she took.
She was smaller than I remembered. Thinner. Fragile in a way that made something violent claw up my throat.
Her head snapped up at the creak of the door.
And when her eyes landed on me, she froze. Completely. Like she was seeing a ghost. Like she believed I was one.
“Atlas…?” Her voice splintered like glass.
My heart stuttered. “Neve.”
For a moment—for a terrible, impossible heartbeat—neither of us moved.
Then she scrambled to her feet too fast and nearly stumbled. I was across the room before she could fall, catching her arms, pulling her against me.
Her hands pressed against my chest as though she was checking if I was real.
“You’re alive,” she whispered. It sounded like a prayer. Like a confession. Like a punishment. “I thought—you didn’t come—I thought you were—”
“I know.” My voice cracked, raw and gutted. “I know. I’m sorry.”
She shoved at my chest then—not hard, not enough to push me back, just enough to shake with it. “Why didn’t you come? Why didn’t you tell me you were alive? I thought—” Her breath hitched. “I thought you died and blamed myself for leaving you there.”
I swallowed hard, resting my forehead against hers.
“You didn’t leave me. I sent you away. I was the one bleeding on the floor. Not you. You lived because I wanted you to live.”
“But I didn’t know,” she choked out. “I didn’t know anything.”
I tightened my grip around her. “Neve. Look at me.”
She did—eyes red, cheeks wet, the kind of grief that could tear a man apart shining in every line of her face.
“I would have come for you the second I could stand. But I needed to make sure the world was safe enough for you to breathe in again.”
She shivered.
“I came as soon as I knew where you were.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “I waited. Every day.”
“I know.”
“I thought you forgot me.”
“I never forget what’s mine.”
Her breath stopped. Just stopped. A fragile second passed between us—her trembling, me breathing her in like oxygen, the world collapsing quietly around our feet. Then she folded into me, arms wrapping around my waist, face pressed to my chest as if she was trying to crawl inside and hide there.
I held her. Tight. Tight enough to bruise. I didn’t let go.
“I dreamed of this,” she whispered into my shirt. “That you would walk through that door and I wouldn’t be alone anymore.”
I closed my eyes.
“You’ll never be alone again,” I told her, and it wasn’t a promise. It was a vow carved from every violence I’d ever known.
She pulled back just enough to search my face. “What happens now?”
I ran a thumb over her cheek, wiping the tear she missed.
“Now?” My voice turned dark, sure, irrevocable. “Now you come home.”
She swallowed hard. “To your world?”
“To our world,” I corrected. “Where no one touches you.”
Her fingers curled into my shirt, and she whispered, “I thought you were dead.”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“I’m very much alive, and I’m done letting anything keep us apart.”
She exhaled shakily.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
I looked her dead in the eye.
“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”
Her lips parted, and for the first time since I stepped into the convent, something opened in her expression—hope.
Hope for me. Hope for us. For a world that didn’t know what was coming.
I took her hand.
“Pack your things, Neve. We’re leaving.”
And when she nodded, when her small fingers tightened around mine like they were made for this, something inside me settled. Not softly or gently.
But with the quiet, devastating certainty of a man who had finally found the thing he’d burn kingdoms to protect.
Neve.
My girl.
My ruin.
My reason.